Obama Must Forsake Cap Gains Tax Hike

OBAMA MUST FORSAKE CAP GAINS TAX HIKE TO STABILIZE MARKETS
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published on DickMorris.com on November 10, 2008

Wall Street is engaged in a test of wills with President-elect Barack Obama. The market, which dropped one thousand points last week, is not going to recover until the next president forswears his plans to raise the capital gains tax. In our book Fleeced we predicted that the Dow would crash after an Obama election because of fears that he will raise taxes, particularly the tax on capital gains.

As we argued in Fleeced, even an unsophisticated investor realizes that if he sells now, he will only have to give the government 15% of his profits whereas if he waits until Obama takes office, he may have to fork over an additional five to fifteen percent of the profits to Washington. Any moron can tell it makes sense to sell before the tax hike kicks in. And since these increases are usually retroactive, investors will take care to sell ASAP rather than wait.

So Obama is in the position of asking people to have confidence in the markets, even though he proposes to as much as double their taxes should they succeed.

The collision course between Obama's leftist ideology and the reality of the markets could not be more striking. The president-elect is surrounded by economic advisors who want to raise capital gains taxes, as much because of their ideology as for any practical benefit. Dick recalls vividly his meeting with Bob Rubin when he was Treasury Secretary under Clinton. Rubin opposed any cut in the capital gains tax even though he admitted that a cut in the tax would not cut, but might even augment, government revenues. Obama, himself, defended an increase as a matter of social fairness in the campaign debates when he was asked whether he favored increasing the tax even though history showed that a higher tax did not generate increased revenues.

Now Obama will have to choose between ideology and reality. Unless and until he pledges to abandon his plans for higher taxes, he will find nothing but bad news in the business sections of the nation's newspapers. He can claim all he wants that the crash is due to Bush's policies, but the fact is that the market advanced during the last week of the campaign when it looked like McCain was gaining and then fell sharply in the two days after Obama's victory.

Depressingly, many of the predictions in Fleeced are now likely to come true, from the overloading of our health care system and the resulting rationing of health care to the weakening of the Patriot Act. We will report on these as they unfold, hoping to generate a climate of moderation and pragmatism in Washington. LOL.

Order a copy of Fleeced from either Amazon.com or Barnes&Noble.com – Click here now!

Go to DickMorris.com to read all of Dick's columns!



__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Denise Austin Mini Stepper... Uh Oh

I bought the Denise Austin Mini Stepper from Amazon for my birthday a year ago. I really loved it at first, but after using it awhile, one of the shocks is already broken and I end up with one shock working and the other side collapsing when stepping on it. It wasn't that expensive, but it was expensive enough that I feel it should have lasted longer. I have also read on the review guides that people write that it seems exercise equipment that has shocks does not last. Sometimes the grease/oil spurts out of the equipment onto their carpeting. So, even though I told many of you that I was so tickled with my mini stepper, at this point, I would not advise you to get one. A good old fashioned walk outside is free and won't break down.

Happy Monday ~

Hubby got me these pretty flowers for my birthday :) Believe it or not, I set them out on the porch when a few started losing their petals and they are still pretty! Most of them are mums, which you know can tolerate cooler weather. I will be cleaning today... always try to do that on Mondays after a weekend of this and that. It's a bit nippy here today, but the sun is shining, which is always pleasant. I am working on templates today and still contemplating on what to do with my store at this point. It's a shame eBay has to "fix" what isn't broken, but what do you do? Weigh what will benefit you the most and roll with it...

EBay Best Match Search

I just wanted to mention again, when you get a chance, do a search on your eBay items to see what comes up. A friend emailed me earlier and told me her items were not in the search results either. This means we MUST put a few auction listings out there to draw business into our eBay stores. I have personally used the .35 cents 30 day listing option and I haven't made any sales from it, however, I may have sold something indirectly by putting items on auction. Search results are not displaying store items. I have called eBay in regards to this, but in the meantime, if you only have a few items in your store, you may want to close your store and simply list on the 30 day auction listing for .35 cents per item. You will save money.

I removed my store banners, quilted throw pillows, bed ruffles and some of my other miscellaneous things. I hope they put our stores back on the site soon, or I may be closing my store. Why have it open if nobody sees the listings due to their poor search engine?

The Weekend Is Over...

Bye bye primitive strawberries! Fortunately, I made a few sales this weekend and the strawberries sold. They are one of my favorite prim bowl fillers to display. I am sure she will love them. The pictures don't show the aged look of the painted osnaburg and the french knots were time consuming. This weekend went by quickly. I have spent an hour alone sitting here sorting through the adorable template backgrounds to choose from. I get tired of the same old look on my blog and love color and change and she has so many backgrounds to choose from, I must have changed my template 7 or 8 times. We spent hours outside today. We raked and blew leaves in the wind. LOL! We were fortunate that most of the time God was blowing in the right direction for us :) As the day progressed, the wind got much colder and now it almost feels like winter out there...

Going to close for the night and want to say a prayer for a dear friend of mine who received bad news recently. *sending prayers and hugs*

The Last Leaf by Oliver Wendell Holmes

In case you missed this on a thread, a poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes

The Last Leaf

I saw him once before,
As he passed by the door,
And again
The pavement stones resound,
As he totters o'er the ground
With his cane.


They say that in his prime,
Ere the pruning-knife of Time
Cut him down,
Not a better man was found
By the Crier on his round
Through the town.


But now he walks the streets,
And he looks at all he meets
Sad and wan,
And he shakes his feeble head,
That it seems as if he said,
"They are gone!"


The mossy marbles rest
On the lips that he has prest
In their bloom,
And the names he loved to hear
Have been carved for many a year
On the tomb.


My grandmamma has said--
Poor old lady, she is dead
Long ago--
That he had a Roman nose,
And his cheek was like a rose
In the snow;


But now his nose is thin,
And it rests upon his chin
Like a staff,
And a crook is in his back,
And a melancholy crack
In his laugh.


I know it is a sin
For me to sit and grin
At him here;
But the old three-cornered hat,
And the breeches, and all that,
Are so queer!


And if I should live to be
The last leaf upon the tree
In the spring,
Let them smile, as I do now,
At the old forsaken bough
Where I cling.

Old Man Winter Is Headed This Way...

I was able to mow the leaves into the woods yesterday and I got up this morning to find the back yard was full of oak leaves again. We had a nice visit from my parents and this afternoon, I spent a couple of hours back out on the mower blowing leaves with it again. It was another gorgeous day here on the mountain. With most of the leaves gone, you can see the beautiful mountain range in the distance. The tall timbers sway in the wind and look so weak, but they are very strong and have withstood many storms and ice storms. Old man winter is headed this way...